Saturday, May 29, 2010

Originality

Today I tried my FAVE Japanese dish of all time, Tuna Tataki, at Nagano behind Coquitlam Centre. And I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. I would say this place comes right behind the Cats Social House in Granville Island and even managed to expand my tataki fan club to my younger cousin. Although it had the basic necessities such as being raw tuna seared on the outside the little details such as the thickness of the cut, the sauce sprinkled on it and the grade of the tuna, all of these minute details mattered and contributed the the overall AMAZINGNESS of this dish.My sister is an incredibly talented and original musician/artist (myspace page). Today, she asked me what I thought her stage name should be. At first, I suggested something clever to her disapproval but then I realized and told her that her own name should be more than good enough! Why recreate an image and start from something unknown when everyone already knew her name?

This brings me to blog about originality, satisfaction and recognizing the beauty within yourself. I can understand why some people may want to change aspects of themselves (name/hair/ ...nose ...maybe). As a sociology major, I recognize that the context of each individuals' life, the cultures and norms they live within lead them or pressure them to make decisions in which they feel they MUST alter their own original authenticity. But as a regular individual, striving to exude positivity and awesomeness (on good days), I think it's all a matter of perspective.

Within our capitalistic consumeristic society, I can understand how easy it is to feel pressured to look a certain way (a pristine model, a goth, a punk etc) and how we tend to feel that anything and everything is purchaseable. A mere trip to a surgical shop can have us coming out with different shapped noses, wider eyes, bigger boobs and everything in between. But these looks, they fade over time and then we feel the constant tendency to fight, fight against the signs of aging to stay within the norm, the young norm.

This is by no means an attempt to lecture as I also participate within the global econmy through my constant (lately too much) consumption and investments. I guess this is just my own attempt to convince myself to stop shopping. More importantly, I wanted to highlight the importance of YOU. Every little thing about you (especially the fact that you are reading this) is what makes you unique and special! I know I have very many things I would possibly change about myself but when you get down to it, why waste time on or energy on focusing on what makes you feel crappy? ESPECIALLY, when you, most often than not, have sooo many things you should appreciate as being authentic thus beautiful.